Moving Associations

[Sean Kearon]

It would be nice to be able to drag an association end to change it.  

[ulb]

It would be nice to be able to drag an association end to change it.  

[fwoolz]

Hi all,

Let me add a vote in favor... I've encountered some minor annoyances in using the "Change Source and Target" dialog where unnamed elements (such as decision nodes in activity diagrams) appear in the list.  I've gotten around this by naming such elements via the "Proprties" window, but the drop-down dialog approach is somewhat klunky, especially with busy diagrams.

Cheers,

Fred Woolsey

[Javier]

Sean,

I'll be the devil's advocate.  I'm not in favor.  The reason is that from the implementer's point of view, it would be ambigious what you want to do with the association:

1. Place it in a different position in the same class to make way for another association?  This is the current behavior, or...

2. Associate it with another class.

Hmm.  

In order to disambiguate, perhaps adding a CTRL+something to let EA know that we want to move to another class.  Let's assume EA supports this feature.  We move it then to the other class.

Now, it's in the other class.  What are the attributes of the association in terms of: role, visibility, multiplicity, navigability...

Then, it seems to me it is simpler at this point to just get rid of the association and create another one :-)

Given the fact that it'll probably take you a minute or two to delete-then-recreate, and that it's not a common task, I vote no.

Regards,

Javier

[Sean Kearon]

Hi Javier

There would be no ambiguity.  If you are changing one fo the association ends then the drop site would indicate this.  If the drop site is the same as the current association end, then it is simply a visual adjustment.

However, I do not think it would be a problem to hit CTRL or something similar to initiate an end point change.

Also,  when you deleting an association is actually quite a lot more work as you have to recreate any constraints, role notes etc.

Sean

[Fenric]

I would be in favor of having CRTL + drag being the unambigious designator of wanting to change an association's Source or Target.

Granted, it's not that common of a requirement, but if I'm in really-RAD mode or simply refactoring out a class, I'd like to be able to visually move any associations.

A toggleable option to have the Association's property dialog appear after you've moved one end (tabbed to either Source or Target, of course) would serve as a prompt to change any values.

My 2 cents....